The Junior Camrose and the Peggy Bayer Trophy are the home international competitions for, respectively, players under 25 and players under 20. England won the under-20 event with several matches to play and scored almost a complete maximum in victory point terms.

Well done also to their elders - but they had to fight off a determined challenge by Northern Ireland. Today's deal was a crucial one - game all, dealer South.

Guardian

Deals such as this, where North-South have the balance of points but East-West have a huge fit in spades, are awkward. When England held the East-West cards, they came to rest in a contract of 4 of spades. North had bid diamonds, so South led one; declarer pitched a loser from dummy rather than ruffing, and he came to 11 tricks for 650 to England.

Bridge Photograph: Guardian

Suppose you were an Northern Irish supporter, and suppose you saw this bidding:

How happy would you be when you saw South, Alex Morris for England, lead a trump and not a diamond? A trump is an excellent lead on this kind of auction - when your opponents have few high cards, the only way they can make tricks is by ruffing, and leading trumps will prevent them from doing much of that. What followed was a keen battle of wits, and it was keenly followed by the thousands of spectators both live and online.

North, Fiona Brown, won the trump lead and searched her hand vainly for another spade with which to cut down declarer's ruffing tricks. She eventually shifted to Ace of clubs, ruffed by declarer, who embarked upon a cross-ruff - a low diamond was ruffed in dummy, a low club in declarer's hand, a low diamond ruffed in dummy, and so on ...

Alas for Northern Ireland, declarer was destined to fall a trick short on this line of play.

Better to lead King of diamonds from her hand and discard something, then try a cross-ruff. That would produce 790 and a healthy lead for Northern Ireland.